Video: Jonny Lieberman Drives Standard-Issue, Banks-Tuned Military HUMVEEs
When 21 Seconds 0-60 Is Pretty Quick
The HMMWV, and its semi-civilized sibling, the Hummer H1, are long past their heyday, with the civilian version and their consumer-grade spinoffs, the H2 and H3 now long gone. There are still thousands of them in use in the U.S. military, and ways to make them safer, quicker, and more efficient are always being looked at by the military brass.
Of course, "quicker" is a relative term when you're talking about a 13,000-pound vehicle with 190 hp in stock trim. That unfavorable power-to-weight ratio resulted in a leisurely 36-second 0-60 time, as Motor Trend's Jonny Lieberman found out. That pace is so poky, in fact, that the standard armored Humvee actually crosses the quarter-mile mark before it reaches 60 mph. Lieberman also found out the MT figure-eight test was not a wise or practical test of the Humvee's capabilities.
To demonstrate its engineering capabilities, Banks Power of Azusa, California, applied some of its expertise to a mil-spec HUMVEE in an effort to improve performance and capabilities of the battlefield beast. The Banks-tuned HUMVEE gets a power bump from 190 to 245, and torque goes from 365 lb-ft to 465. With the performance enhancements on the Banks-tuned vehicle, the HUMVEE cuts a whopping 15 seconds off its 0-60 time, from 36 to 21 seconds, and actually completes the run to 60 before the end of the quarter.
Watch Jonny test these armed force icons in the video below!